Flight Safety Information
March 25, 2013 - No. 062
In This Issue
NTSB To Boeing - 'Stop The PR Stunts!'
American Airlines flight makes emergency landing at Dulles after first officer
gets sick
Human Pilots Are a Problem, and Robot Controlled Planes May Be the Solution
Jet emergency at Perth Airport
FAA To Relax Rules On In-Flight Electronic Use
PROS IOSA Audit Experts
Japan Airlines may buy 20 Airbus A350 jets
If the Military's Future Stealth Jet Fails, the Navy's Got a Backup Plan
Are aircraft carriers about to become an endangered species in the United
States?
NTSB To Boeing - 'Stop The PR Stunts!'
The National Transportation Safety Board, in a letter to The Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA)
Thursday, scolded Boeing executives according to Bloomberg.
The rebuke was for comments made by Boeing officials at a media briefing in Tokyo,
related to plans to get the grounded Dreamliner flying again.
The NTSB said Boeing didn't tell investigators what it planned to say in the March 15
briefing and that this is "inconsistent with our expectations" from a company involved in
an accident probe.
The letter from the NTSB signals tension between the agency and Boeing. This is not
good for Boeing as it tries to mitigate damage to the image of its high-efficiency 787
once officials clear the plane to fly.
The main complaint from the agency appears to be the fact that Boeing representatives
provided "their own analysis and conclusions regarding an ongoing NTSB investigation,"
according to Kelly Nantel, a safety board representative.
Boeing representative, Marc Birtel, responded to the NTSB criticism saying, "We have
received the correspondence, and remain fully committed to support the NTSB and other
regulatory authorities in their investigations into the cause of the 787 battery incidents."
In a related story, reported by Reuters, Japan's Civil Aviation Bureau said, Friday, that
despite optimistic predictions by Boeing, no test flight of the grounded 787 Dreamliner is
scheduled yet.
Reuters had reported Wednesday that sources said Boeing planned to conduct two flight
tests of the revamped 787 battery system as soon as the end of the week. The company
has predicted the Dreamliner could return to operation within weeks.
On the "good news" side of the ledger, The Associated Press reported that Lion Air,
which gave Boeing its largest-ever order for 230 planes last year, now says it expects to
have ordered a total of 1,000 planes in the next few years.
Lion Air President Rusdi Kirana said that Malindo Air, which Lion jointly owns with a
Malaysian company, is a critical first test for the company's longer-term plans.
Rusdi said Malindo would start flying between Malaysia and Indonesia with a fleet of 12
new Boeing 737 planes in May, before expanding to other cities in Southeast Asia. He
outlined plans to add 12 planes each year, bringing the total fleet to more than 100 in a
decade. Plans include adding Boeing 787 Dreamliner jets by 2015 to fly to routes to
China, Japan, and Australia.
Finally, Bloomberg reports that Delta Air Lines Inc. (NYSE: DAL) says it is considering
buying as many as 20 wide-body jets from Airbus SAS or Boeing with a list value of at
least $4.3 billion.
Reportedly the order will be for 10 to 20 either Airbus A330s or Boeing 777s. Delta
already has both plane types in its fleet.
In the meantime, Friday at midday, Boeing shares are up slightly, less than 1 percent, at
$84.78.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/benzingainsights/2013/03/22/ntsb-to-boeing-stop-the-pr-
stunts/
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American Airlines flight makes emergency landing at Dulles after first officer
gets sick
An American Airlines flight made an emergency landing in Dulles after the plane's first
officer became ill during the flight.
American Airlines spokesman Kent Powell said the first officer complained of feeling ill,
and decided to land the plane at about 11:15 a.m. on Saturday. There were 141
passengers on board the Dallas-bound plane out of Newark. Passengers boarded another
aircraft at about 2 p.m.
Powell said the officer has been released from the hospital, but did not say what his
ailment was.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/american-airlines-flight-makes-emergency-landing-at-
dulles-after-first-officer-gets-sick/article/2525224
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Human Pilots Are a Problem, and Robot Controlled Planes May Be the Solution
The pilot of Air France Flight 447 was operating on one hour of sleep before the plane
crashed into the Atlantic. In Philadelphia, a man impersonating a pilot made it into a US
Airways cockpit. The era of robot pilots can't get here fast enough.
After a day of pilot-related news like today, it's hard not to wonder. A pilot for Air
France, responsible for the lives of 228 people, stays up all night entertaining his
girlfriend. The Telegraph reports that he was asleep when the plane began to display
signs of trouble. It then took him more than a minute to get back to the controls. The
transcript of the cockpit conversation and data from the flight recorder reveal that he
and his co-pilot made a series of errors that led to the 2009 crash.
And then this morning, a French man in a shirt with an Air France logo was found sitting
in the pilot's seat of a US Airways plane that was about to begin boarding. Clearly he
was going to be discovered before the plane pulled away from the gate, but the incident
necessarily raises questions about the security of airline cockpits.
This isn't a new problem. According to PlaneCrashInfo.com, pilot error is the cause of
half of all fatal accidents - and always has been.
So why have pilots? The primary impediment isn't technology. Planes are currently flown
primarily by instruments. Nor is complete autonomy impossible; after all, here's what a
small plane developed by MIT can do in a confined space.
Granted, that would be a bumpy flight. But at least the plane didn't crash.
In December of 2011, IEEE Spectrum discussed the possibility of pilotless planes,
outlining the existing technology and suggesting real problem: psychology.
One factor that's often cited for keeping a pilot in charge is what's known as "shared
fate." That's the reassurance passengers get from knowing that the human in the cockpit
wants to live just as much as they do. But shared fate is not the only way, or even the
normal way, to ensure safe service. After all, restaurants don't employ food tasters to
reassure diners, nor do losing defense lawyers join their clients in jail. It's usually
enough for a professional to demonstrate sheer competence-the "right stuff" of aviator
lore. And it's clear that automatic pilots-like those that land F-18s-now have a goodly
amount of it.
But trusting software to safely shepherd hundreds of passengers across thousands of
kilometers? A suspicious public isn't likely to buy into that vision, because safety is one
of those things you can't have enough of.
Part of the psychological impediment stems from danger being largely imagined, not
real. Oversexed-but-sleepy pilots notwithstanding, planes are an enormously safe way to
travel. The New York Times notes that you could fly every day for 123,000 years before
you'd be likely to be in a fatal crash. But that's not reassuring once the cabin doors
close, so people seek irrational comfort in empty gestures: removing your shoes at
security, human pilots at the controls. When the danger is real and immediate, there's
less need for such frippery.
Like when your aircraft is on a bombing mission in enemy territory. The increased use of
drones isn't only about economics; it's about safety. On June 2, 1995, Scott O'Grady was
shot down in Serbia. A week later he was rescued, despite the odds of a successful
retrieval. That August, an unmanned drone was similarly grounded. That one, they never
made a movie about, but it did earn a mention in a 1997 report submitted to the
Department of Defense: "The Pilotless Air Force? A Look at Replacing Human Operators
with Advanced Technology." In the years since, that rhetorical question has been
answered. The Air Force is scrambling to fill drone pilot positions, and may be
considering a majority-drone force. Air Force unmanned aerial vehicles still have a
human at the controls, of course - just as a commercial flight could still have a human
emergency backup.
That psychological barrier may fall more quickly in a decade or so, once self-driving cars
become more common. Driving is statistically much more dangerous than flying, but
offers a sense of control that flying doesn't. If we become accustomed to surrendering
our cars to technology, it's hard to see why we wouldn't be more likely to allow the same
in the cockpit. So long as we're not afraid.
Airlines aren't known for their embrace of innovation or safety improvements. But at
some point, the current streak of unprecedented airline safety may end - and tragically.
If the cause is pilot error, it's worth considering how to remove pilots from the equation
once and for all.
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2013/03/human-pilots-vs-robot-
pilots/63427/
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Jet emergency at Perth Airport
The Cessna Citation is towed off the runway this morning.
Update, 3.45pm: An internal investigation is taking place into the cause of an aborted jet
take-off at Perth Airport this morning.
The Cessna Citation was gathering speed prior to taking off about 6am when two of its
tyres blew leaving the plane disabled on the airport's main runway.
Neither the two pilots or the seven passengers on board were injured in the incident.
The passengers, believed to be travelling to a mine site in the North West, were put onto
another plane shortly after to be taken to their destination.
Reports that the plane's landing gear failed to extend causing the incident have been
denied by the plane's operator Maxem Aviation.
Engineers will assess what caused the wheels to deflate.
A spokesman for the Australian Transport and Safety Bureau said the authority would
not be investigating the incident.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/wa/16437585/jet-emergency-at-perth-airport/
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FAA To Relax Rules On In-Flight Electronic Use
Here's some good news for air travelers: The New York Times is reporting the Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA) may soon loosen its rules around the use of electronics
during takeoff and landing.
The change, however, will not affect cellphone use. Instead, it applies to reading devices
such as iPads and Kindles.
Anonymous employees at an industry group the FAA set up last year told the news outlet
the governmental agency is under tremendous pressure to either allow use of these
types of devices, or provide significant evidence why they cannot be used. According to
multiple sources, there is no proof these types of devices affect a plane's avionics.
According to the report, the group has been meeting with key companies, including
Amazon and the Consumer Electronics Association, since January. It's likely the FAA
could make an announcement about the relaxed rules by the end of the year.
The group also told The New York Times that the FAA hopes to replace multiple
regulations with a single, concise set.
Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill said she planned to hold the agency accountable by
introducing legislation surrounding the new rules.
"So it's OK to have iPads in the cockpit; it's OK for flight attendants - and they are not in
a panic - yet it's not OK for the traveling public," Senator McCaskill told The New York
Times in a phone interview. "A flying copy of 'War and Peace' is more dangerous than a
Kindle."
http://www.gadling.com/2013/03/24/faa-to-relax-rules-on-in-flight-electronic-use/
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Japan Airlines may buy 20 Airbus A350 jets
TOKYO, March 24 (Reuters) - Japan Airlines Co may buy about 20 A350 jets from Airbus
for around 400 billion yen ($4.23 billion), the Nikkei daily reported on Sunday, a move
that would reduce its reliance on Boeing.
The Japanese carrier is considering using A350-1000 jets on flights to Europe and the
United States to replace its Boeing 777 jets, and is set to make a final decision on the
purchase by around June, the newspaper said, without citing sources.
Japan Airlines and Airbus could not be immediately reached for comment.
The deal for the 350-seater planes would be the first with the European aircraft maker
and includes a simulation facility for pilot training.
Japan Airlines is set to retire its lone McDonnell Douglas MD-90 jet after a final flight on
March 30, leaving it with a fleet of more than 100 aircraft, all manufactured by Boeing,
the report said.
The carrier's seven Boeing 787 Dreamliner jets have been grounded since mid-January
after problems with its lithium-ion battery.
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If the Military's Future Stealth Jet Fails, the Navy's Got a Backup Plan
A Super Hornet lands aboard the carrier U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower
The U.S. Navy is carefully backing away from the troubled F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
program - and putting in place a backup plan in case the trillion-dollar, jack-of-all-trades
stealth jet can't recover from mounting technical and budgetary woes. So much for the
F-35 being too big to fail.
The Navy's Plan B is still taking shape. But its outlines are coming into view, thanks in
large part to recent comments from its top officer. It involves fewer F-35s (the Navy'll
still buy some) and more copies of the older Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet carrier-
based fighter, which the Lockheed Martin-built F-35 was originally meant to replace. In
the unlikely event the F-35C - the naval version of the radar-evading plane - gets
canceled, the Super Hornet could be upgraded past its current shelf life. The twin-engine
F/A-18E/F is already getting new weapons. Extra fuel tanks and some stealth treatments
could be added as well.
The Joint Strike Fighter program is many billions of dollars over budget and years behind
schedule; it probably can't deliver a single combat-ready warplane to the Navy before
2018. The Navy has long been the least enthusiastic of the Joint Strike Fighter's U.S.
customers, which also include the Air Force and Marines, each with their own unique
variant of the F-35. Since the sailing branch has the youngest fighter force in the
military, it has the least urgent need for factory-fresh planes.
And the Navy downplays radar-eluding stealth capability in its war plans, instead
preferring to fight its way through enemy defenses or fire weapons from a distance. "It is
time to consider shifting our focus from platforms that rely solely on stealth to also
include concepts for operating farther from adversaries using standoff weapons and
unmanned systems - or employing electronic-warfare payloads to confuse or jam threat
sensors rather than trying to hide from them," Adm. Jonathan Greenert wrote last year
in the U.S. Naval Institute journal Proceedings.
Greenert, the Navy's top officer, is a case study in the Navy's ambivalence about the
Joint Strike Fighter. His Proceedings piece was interpreted as a shot across the F-35s
bow, but Greenert denies he meant any such thing. "We need the F-35C; we need its
capability," Greenert said two weeks ago. "It has stealth, range, big payload capacity
and an enormous electronic attack (potential)."
But in the same breath, Greenert hinted that the Navy might buy fewer F-35Cs than the
current 260 on order. "The question becomes how many do we buy, and how does it
integrate into the air wing," he said, adding that totally canceling the new plane is
unlikely for political reasons. "If we bought no Cs that would be very detrimental to the
overall program."
Any reduction in the number of Joint Strike Fighters purchased subtracts from
Lockheed's intricately laid-out production plan, therefore increasing the cost of the
remaining jets. However, buying fewer F-35Cs and more improved F/A-18s might be
possible without utterly wrecking the Joint Strike Fighter program.
A Pentagon analysis obtained by Reuters found that reducing the Pentagon's overall
acquisition of F-35s from 2,400 copies to just 1,500 would increase the per-unit price of
the remaining planes just nine percent. Today a single F-35 costs more than $100 million
and an F/A-18 around half that much. Swapping F-35Cs for Super Hornets could save
the Navy, and by extension the Pentagon, billions of dollars. Not to mention the Navy is
already thinking about a brand-new fighter design to come after both the JSF and Super
Hornet.
With improvements, the Super Hornet could equal the Joint Strike Fighter's combat
capability, albeit with different tactics - and, admittedly, this is highly debatable. The
Navy is working to make the F/A-18E/F a long-range missile-hauler with some optional
stealth qualities, as opposed to the fully stealthy F-35 designed to slip past enemy
defenses at close range and drop guided bombs before sneaking away.
The Navy has already budgeted for a new 500-mile-range anti-ship and land-attack
missile for the Super Hornet and this year will also be testing overwing fuel tanks that
could add hundreds of miles to the jet's range, possibly allowing it to out-distance the F-
35. The F/A-18E/F could also get extra radar-absorbing coatings and a stealthy
underbelly pod for carrying all its weapons - though the Navy has yet to fund these
options.
In many ways, a shift from the F-35 to an enhanced F/A-18 is the comfortable move for
the Navy. The sailing branch has long favored the kind of stand-up fighting the Super
Hornet is best at. While current Air Force war plans call for F-22 and B-2 stealth planes
to covertly infiltrate enemy territory, the Navy foresees using radio noise-generating
Growler jamming planes to overwhelm enemy defenses and allow the Super Hornets to
strike.
For the flying branch, adding stealthy F-35s does not mean fundamentally altering its
strategy, whereas the Navy would be forced to rewrite decades-old doctrine.
In any event, the Navy can afford to wait and see whether the Joint Strike Fighter
overcomes its recent groundings, performance downgrades and other problems. Boeing's
St. Louis Super Hornet factory has enough orders to keep its lights on into 2015, after
which the Navy could put into effect some version of its aviation plan B. Or it can cast its
lot with the more risky F-35.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/03/navy-stealth-plan-b/
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Are aircraft carriers about to become an endangered species in the United
States?
(AFP) Budget pressures at the Pentagon have renewed a debate about the value of the
US Navy's giant aircraft carriers, with critics arguing the warships are fast becoming
costly relics in a new era of warfare.
With the Pentagon facing $500 billion in cuts over the next decade, a Navy officer has
dared to question the most treasured vessels in his service's fleet, saying the super
carriers are increasingly vulnerable to new weapons and too expensive to operate.
"After 100 years, the carrier is rapidly approaching the end of its useful strategic life,"
wrote Captain Henry Hendrix in a report published this month by the Center for a New
American Security, a Washington think-tank with close ties to President Barack Obama's
administration.
Changes in naval warfare mean that carriers "may not be able to move close enough to
targets to operate effectively or survive in an era of satellite imagery and long-range
precision strike missiles," Hendrix wrote.
Under US law, the military is required to maintain 11 aircraft carriers. Ten are currently
in service after the retirement of the USS Enterprise, which is due to be replaced in 2017
with the USS Gerald Ford, the first of a new class of "big decks."
The new carrier carries a prohibitive pricetag of $13.6 billion, double the cost of the last
aircraft carrier. And that does not count the $4.7 billion spent on research and
development for the new class of carriers.
It costs about $6.5 million a day to operate a single carrier strike group, which includes
five other warships, an attack submarine, an air wing of 80 fighters and helicopters, and
a crew of 6,700.
But Hendrix maintains the return on the investment is paltry.
Each F/A-18 fighter in the carrier fleet has dropped roughly 16 bombs in 10 years of war,
which works out to about $7.5 million for each bomb when all the costs of the aircraft
are taken into account.
That compares to the cost of firing a Tomahawk cruise missile, at about $2 million each.
And five naval destroyers armed with Tomahawks cost only $10 billion to build and $1.8
million a day to operate, Hendrix said.
Apart from the mushrooming cost, carriers are facing mounting dangers from
increasingly sophisticated ship-killing missiles, skeptics say.
US strategists are fixated on China's DF-21D missile, which they fear could potentially
knock out a carrier and deprive the American fleet of its dominance on the high seas.
Former Pentagon chief Robert Gates cited the anti-ship missiles and other hi-tech
weapons in a speech in 2010 in which he questioned whether it was worth spending
billions on more carriers.
"Do we really need 11 carrier strike groups for another 30 years when no other country
has more than one?" Gates told retired naval officers.
Advanced missiles and stealthy submarines "could end the operational sanctuary our
navy has enjoyed in the Western Pacific for the better part of six decades," said Gates,
who referred to carriers as potential "wasting assets."
His remarks alarmed naval leaders, and the latest dissent has failed to dissuade most
officers, who view the big decks as crucial and note that China is deploying its own
carrier.
Pete Daly, a retired vice admiral who once commanded the USS Nimitz carrier strike
group, defended the ships as a vital element of US military might.
To hit deeply buried targets, fighter jets flying off a carrier were more effective than
Tomahawk missiles, and knocking out a super carrier is "very, very hard," said Daly, now
head of the US Naval Institute.
As for China's missiles, "it was an additional threat to take into account," Daly told AFP.
But he added: "The US Navy is very aware of this and has plans to deal with it."
The cost of the carriers had to be compared with the huge funding required to protect
and supply air bases and troops on land, as illustrated by the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, he said.
And the carriers could be ordered in without the political strain associated with a drawn-
out ground war.
"The American people are very wary of commitments ashore, there's no appetite to go in
and have a ten-year presence in some place," said Daly.
"Here you have a force that can go to a location, deal with a task ahead and then leave
quickly or stay as long as it needs to. The political dynamic of that is completely
different".
Curt Lewis